Mobile DTV is one step closer to a standard, as two key industry consortiums agreed to combine aspects of their proposals.

The Open Mobile Video Coalition recommended the MPH (Mobile-Pedestrian-Handheld) transmission technology from LG Electronics and Harris Corp. “as the baseline of the ‘physical layer’ platform,” augmented with “features” from the A-VSB (Advanced VSB) technology developed by Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz.

OMVC Executive Director Anne Schelle said the third industry team, Thomson and Micronas, may still have its technology for mobile DTV features considered by Advanced Television Systems Committee, which now takes up the OMVC findings, called the IDOV (Independent Demonstration of Viability).

“This is an excellent step forward for the standards process in general,” she said. OMVC’s report to the ATSC is lengthy, she said, but confidential.

Lab and field tests in March and April in the San Francisco Bay area and Las Vegas involved more than 140 hours and 1,000 miles of mobile data.

Across the globe in Korea, Samsung and LG gave a preview of the OMVC finding by announcing their plans for collaboration.

The ATSC plans to approve a candidate ATSC M/H (mobile/handheld) standard in October toward a goal of commercial deployments in 2009.

Harris Corp., a partner of LG on the MPH technology, quickly announced it will introduce in November a full transmission platform to meet the anticipated ATSC M/H standard. It also said it will begin shipping its new Apex M2X ATSC exciter in August; the units will be field-upgradeable beginning in early November to fully support M/H broadcasts, putting into place the final component needed to complete the end-to-end in-band mobile DTV platform.

The solution’s physical layer is compatible with most ATSC DTV transmitters and supports the management and service elements of most mobile DTV standards, Harris said. It also features an Internet Protocol (IP)-based transport layer.